Nanny boo-boos

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The antibullying campaign is a good example
of how creeping nannyism works. First you
propose a program that seems limited and
reasonable (in this case, stopping tough kids
from preying on weaker ones). Then you
gradually extend the program until a truly
demented level of government intrusion is
reached.

What counts as
bullying? Violence
and intimidation, of
course. But also
name-calling, dirty
looks, teasing,
rumors, and avoiding
students you don't
like ("shunning" or
"exclusion"). So with
99 percent of
students defined as
bullies, we obviously
need lots of
programs. Cafeteria
seating may have to
be rearranged. One
workbook calls for
anticlique meals (no sitting with friends). The agendas of various activists
show up in antibullying manuals. In Charleston, W. Va., a school manual
called for eliminating the word "marriage" in class discussions (it should be
"permanent relationship") and suggested that students show support for gays
by wearing T-shirts with pink triangles. This is how nannyism expands,
moving from intimidation to rumors and jokes, then to political guidance from
your friendly government school. The next thing you know, a violation will cost
you. And that's no joke. The legal department of the city of Edmonton,
Canada, wants cops to be able to write $250 tickets for repeated bullying of
anyone under age 18. ("I didn't mean to tease him again, officer.")

Notice, too, the creeping nannyism on cellphones in cars. Now that the
campaign to ban hand-held phones by drivers is catching on, some
campaigners have upped the ante: They want to prohibit drivers' use of
hands-free phones, too. The centerpiece of this effort is a new study by
University of Utah psychologists. It finds that drivers suffer just as much
"inattention blindness" with hands-free phones as with hand-held ones.

Fiddledeedee. So let's ban all phones and car radios, too. The California
Highway Patrol found that 768 of some 9,000 crashes were caused by drivers
fiddling with radios or CD players. Next to be rendered illegal will be
spouse-passengers, whose commentary is famous for inducing inattention
blindness, even when the car is parked. And of course, attention-deflecting
dogs and children should logically be banned, too.

In Australia, the Democrats, a small political party, announced that if drivers'
mobile phones are illegal, then smoking should be too, because fishing
around for cigarettes, lighters, and ashtrays is just as distracting as phoning.
Presumably, this would also be true of hands-free smoking, as when drivers
use a hookah on the highway. Perhaps we will get a psychological study,
followed by a new law.

The Australian Democrats deserve a medal for identifying the only remaining
place where nobody had thought to ban smoking--one's own car. A New York
court case prohibited smoking in one's own home. Various jurisdictions made
smoking a no-no in restaurants, bars, offices, stadiums, dorms, government
buildings, public transport, sidewalks, and other public spaces. Smoking has
even been banned on old Beatles albums: The cigarette has been removed
from Paul McCartney's hand on the reissued cover of Abbey Road, probably
for his own good.

The frontier for antismoking nannyism is the attempt to make all outdoor
smoking impossible. One activist has suggested that Manhattan's Central
Park be marked as a no-smoking zone, presumably because a gust of deadly
secondhand smoke might waft from the park's 840 acres into the window of a
distant apartment and kill somebody. And New York City's health department
has just issued a severe nanny warning: It announced that doctors could face
malpractice suits if they don't push patients hard to stop smoking.

Maybe doctors will also be sued if patients don't lose weight. In Britain, a
feminist author is planning to sue Weight Watchers on grounds that many
women and men in the program failed to slim down. Public-health officials in
England want the government to control the size of chocolate bars, making
large ones illegal. Some American schools have removed soda machines, and
California restricts soda sales in some schools and is due to consider a bill to
ban them in all schools. No Cokes. The nannies disapprove.

One of the great triumphs of nannyism has been programs around the country
that conscript hairdressers to become domestic violence inspectors. The city
of San Francisco and the state of Nevada have them. The hairdressers
surreptitiously check scalps for bumps and faces for scratches. The
hairdresser-surveiller is supposed to study what a customer says and how
she says it. Then the hairdresser may glide into counseling, though one
Nevada salon owner "wonders whether 20-year-old hairdressers are qualified
to counsel their clients," according to a news report. Not to worry. Of course
they are qualified. They're nannies.